art1st stat3m3nt

‘(BAD) Life Advice’ is a collaged zine adapted from the ‘Motivational Posters Series’ in Part A. I wanted to create an intimate, hand-held work similar to an infographic or educational pamphlet. Flipping through the zine, each spread has a different theme much like the individualised posters for Part A. Small odes to the ‘Motivational Posters’ are seen in repeated quotes such as “I bet you use plastic straws”. The quotes included in the zine are a collection of advice that ranges from dangerous to self-deprecating, inspired by Dadaist Francis Picabia’s ‘Tableau Rastadada’ and his self-deprecating collage portrait. The collaged paper-pasted-on-paper gives a child-like, makeshift look that reminds me of an episode of ‘Charlie and Lola’ from my childhood where they crafted fake passports using a range of collaged materials. Pairing life-threatening advice (“Always use water to extinguish oil fires!”) with the child-like chaos of a collaged zine presents a juxtaposition between innocence and a nihilistic approach to life. This social commentary is brought from the ‘Motivational Posters Series’ and through the composition of a zine, changes the scale and material from Part A, and thus the meaning of the work. I wanted to convey a sense of authorship, and bring the audience to consider who would be making a zine, and who it would be for. In Part A, the motivational posters evoke a sense of an office space or a worker-friendly environment. Whilst Part B becomes more private and “inaccessible” by a wider audience. Going back to ‘Charlie and Lola’, the childhood innocence in creating a paper book, and possibly showing it to your parents or to just “play” with, is an entirely different interaction between the art and the audience compared to Part A’s motivational posters which were made to be accessible (through mounting on the wall or simply, works that aren’t meant to be touched). ‘(BAD) Life Advice’ is an artwork that is meant to have time invested into and held by the audience, but much like Part A, the advice remains degrading and mean, a small glimpse of thoughts we don’t want to delve into; the crudely crafted zine slowly becoming an unwanted piece of paper, and thrown away.

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'(BAD) Life Advice' scanned ver.